Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day

Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day. Please share this information with your patrons. Supporting you local book store yourself and encourage your patrons to make a visit too.

But today I also want to make a plea for your library to be a customer as well. I know that we mostly buy our books from Baker & Taylor or Ingram, but it is important to support our local bookstores as well. A vibrant literary community has libraries and bookstores. 

When I was in collections and ran a book club, we worked with a local book store to buy 10 paperback copies of all 12 of our book discussion titles each year. We got a good deal (almost as good as Ingram) and we had the store put a sticker in the book so they could advertise themself and note their cooperation with the library. Those titles were used for our book clubs and then entered into our book discussion collection. They were a community collection in the truest sense-- bought form na local store and then shared throughout the community for local book clubs.

We also used the local independent book store to purchase prizes for summer reading. Totebags, book marks, pins, notebooks, socks, t-shirts, etc.... all that great stuff that these stores sell alongside the books. This also supported the store and gave us the prizes we needed.

Below, I am sharing the text from an email I received from my publisher, Saga Press, as to how we authors could help support our independent bookstores. I edited it a bit to be more directed at you-- the library worker-- but there are some great tips here.

And for my Chicago area friends, my favorite independent book stores are Exile in Bookville, City Lit, and Bucket 'O Blood Books and Records.

See the shared link below to use the map or visit the Independent Bookstore Day landing page for the most unto date information. 

One Day. Fifty States. 1,600+ Bookstores.

Sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, Independent Bookstore Day is a national celebration that takes place on the last Saturday of April each year. The day highlights the value of independent bookstores and the unique ways they contribute to their communities. It’s a celebration of books, readers, and indie bookselling.  

On IBD, indie bookstores often plan activities, host events, serve refreshments, and have special programming like scavenger hunts and bookstore crawls, raffles,  games, and more. And they ride a wave of positive publicity and social media buzz around indie bookstores.  

 

The ABA creates IBD-specific merchandise and swag for stores. None of these items are available anywhere except at ABA member indie bookstores. 

 

Here is a list of ways you can support Independent Bookstores on April 26 and beyond. Independent Bookstores champion authors and books, provide essential community spaces for readers, and collectively host thousands of authors each year for book launches, talks, and panels. 

 

1. Shop! Consider visiting your local indie and making some purchases. It's a great day to do some gift-buying. Mother's Day, graduation season, and Father's Day are all right around the corner, after all. 

 

2. Social shout-out: While you’re in the store, take a selfie (or shelfie) and/or a photo of your purchases to share on social media, tagging the bookstore and encouraging folks to buy at the indies. 

 

3. Participate in a Bookstore Crawl: Why visit one bookstore when you could visit several? Many stores in urban areas organize crawls, with punch cards for participants and prizes if you visit every store on a list.(Link to the Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl for NYC authors) Check with your local indie to see if they're organizing a crawl or look at the ABA bookstore finder map or the indie-to-indie directory and choose your own adventure! 

Share the Independent Bookstore Day homepage with your patrons and encourage them to visit your local independent bookstore.

Be a Gate Opener: Using the The Library of Congress' National Book Festival Highlights Videos To Fight for More Patron Friendly Cataloging

The Library of Congress has been holding the National Book Festival for 25 years and they are celebrating with resources for you. Well to be fair, they always have resources for free because there are our National Book Festival and like our National Museums in DC, it is free.

This year's event is coming in September and on the LOC Blog, they started their promotion by releasing videos from EVERY YEAR in the past.

Here is the intro from that post:

The Library of Congress National Book Festival will celebrate its 25th year on September 6, 2025. For this year’s festival information, visit the 2025 National Book Festival website.

To honor the occasion, we are taking the 24 weeks leading up to this year’s festival at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to highlight two videos each week from past National Book Festivals, from the festival’s first year in 2001 to 2024. Each week, we’ll highlight a past festival year with a video from an adult writer and one from a children’s writer. We hope you enjoy scrolling through the past with us! Check out videos from the first 2001 festival here.

The videos they are sharing in this post are from George RR Martin and Meg Cabot.

We are always looking for author content to share with our patrons. Ways for them to connect with their favorites. Well, this is a great easy and FREE way to do that. Add these videos to your websites and socials. But today I want to focus on an even better spot to link these videos of conversations with some of our most popular authors-- YOUR CATALOG.

We do not leverage the power of the link in our catalogs. I know there is resistance in some larger systems, but this resistance has NO MERIT. Yes, even when the department in charge gives you a very good reason, I am telling you--- THEY ARE WRONG.

The number of times I have been told by those above me, especially in tech services, that something I want to do that helps my readers, that puts them first, well, it's a lot. I have said more times that one on this blog and to people in person-- the library rules you claim are intractable are not. They are arbitrary rules that we have made about how books are organized. They are not a law and changing them-- even in large shared systems -- will not take the entire library cataloging system down. And most importantly, there is no library jail. 

Many of our rules also work against our readers and their library experience. Many of our rules are actually meant to keep books on the shelf rather than get them into the hand of our readers. And the fact that people get so mad when you demand they allow you to add things that engage readers and connect them to your collections to your catalog, shows their true colors. They would rather everything be neatly organized on the shelf than in the hands of a reader.

Let's take an example from the real world. I started talking about shelving books in series order NOT alpha order back in 2018. As I argued then, no one reads a series in alpha order, so why do we insist on shelving them that way. (I know why but again, it is a dumb librarian preference and is the opposite of getting books into readers hands more easily).

At the time, very few libraries did this and MANY people told me to be quiet and stop instigating, that it could not be done. Well, guess what? It could. And these days MANY libraries shelve their books in series order. What did it take? It was not some huge software upgrade. It was simply those of us serving readers working with our catalogers to improve discovery and come up with a solution.

Never take NO for an answer when your goal is to put the reader and their experiences first.

So, the people who tell you that you cannot add local information to your OPACs are also wrong. I have talked to people at a few large consortia and while they agreed that the first instinct is to say no, they are 100% ways to add reader focused info like links to author interviews or to locally made readalike lists and more.

Ask why they are saying no. Is it because you will ruin the record or make it messy? That reason is not valid. Fields can be created in all OPACs for links to be added. Is it because they don't want to go back and worry about fixing dead links? Again, not valid. Records need to one edited all of the time. Arguing to not use the technological advantages of an OPAC to engage with your readers because some time in the future the link will be bad is not valid. Here is your counter-- that is like saying we should not add any new books because one day they will be weeded.

Yes it is that simple. 

I am using this post today as the start of a new series I am calling "Be a Gate Opener." I will have a longer post describing what I mean by the term "Gate Opener" soon, but today I am beginning the conversation with you so that you can start the conversation at your library. The ultimate goal is to create a new program on this topic as well. But baby steps. Start with these excellent, free videos that we, as citizens of this country, own so they can be shared without copyright worries.

Click here for more information any time of the year via the homepage for the National Book Festival. But use this as a great chance to fight for adding more discovery power to your OPAC.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Hugo and Nebula Awards Editions

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

Both of the major Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards announced their finalists in the last month or so. I know that many library workers confuse them and even blend them when promoting to readers, which for most of our purposes is fine. Simply knowing that these are award nominated titles in SF and FSY is enough to suggest them to readers.

Plus-- two similar awards means double the suggestions for us to supply confidently. I am posting them together to double the impact of each.

But there are differences, even when titles overlap. Today I will have the links to both and their backlist direct access as well. But before I get to that, remember to check the link at the top for the first post in this series and use these for displays, collection development, lists and more.

First up, the Nebula Awards are given out by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Their process is very similar to the Bram Stoker Awards as they are voted on by the active and lifetime members. From the 2025 announcement back in March:

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is pleased to announce the finalists for the 60th Annual Nebula Awards®! Our congratulations go out to each and every finalist for the recognition of their excellent works published in 2024. 

Here are the Novel nominees:

Nebula Award for Novel

• Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory, Yaroslav Barsukov (Caezik SF & Fantasy)
• Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom; Solaris UK)
• Asunder, Kerstin Hall (Tordotcom)
• A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher (Tor; Titan UK)
• The Book of Love, Kelly Link (Random House; Ad Astra UK)
• Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia UK)

You can click here to see all of the nominees in 7 categories. 

SFWA offers two easy ways to search the backlist. Click here to search by year. Or, click here to search by award and add a year if you want to the search.

Second we have the Hugo Award Finalists. The Hugo Awards are based on those attending Worldcon each year. Here is the announcement for 2025; I have copied the intro so you understand the process on this one.

Seattle Worldcon 2025, the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention, is delighted to announce the finalists for the 2025 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

1,338* valid electronic nominating ballots were received by the deadline of March 14 at 11:59 p.m. PDT and counted from the members of the 2024 and 2025 World Science Fiction Conventions for the 2025 Hugo Awards. ​​Unfortunately, two mailed ballots were received 2.5 weeks later on April 3 after the deadline of receipt. Voting on the final ballot will open during April 2025.

Only Seattle Worldcon 2025 WSFS members will be able to vote on the final ballot and choose the winners for the 2025 Awards. The 2025 Hugo Awards, the Lodestar Award, and the Astounding Award will be presented on Saturday evening, August 16, 2025, at a formal ceremony at Seattle Worldcon 2025.

Questions about the Hugo Awards process may be directed to hugo-help@seattlein2025.org.

* Initial publication had an error of 1,738 ballots instead of the correct number of 1,338.

Because the Hugo process is more amorphous and the voting pool changes year to year,  

Best Novel

• Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US, Tor UK)
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press, Sceptre)
• Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom)
• Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (DAW)
• A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher (Tor)
• The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey, Hodderscape UK)

1078 ballots cast for 554 nominees, finalists range 90 to 157

You can click here to see all of the nominees in 21(!) categories, including a slew of categories for "fan" created works. 

Now the backlist access to the Hugos is less intuitive precisely because it ties to each year's convention, which is always at a different site. However, Locus Magazine has an excellent dataset of all speculative awards which they make searchable in numerous ways. Here is their page for the Hugos awards. Click here for access to the entire Locus Magazine Awards Database.

Interestingly, despite the widely different processes for niminating titles, two novels made both lists: Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (DAW) and A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher (Tor). There is also overlap in other categories. You can use the links provided to see them all.

It is very common for there to be overlap. I like to look at these titles, where the fans and the writers agree, as the best place to begin with your suggestions to the average reader looking for something good and new in SF or FSY. Pay special attention to those works and make sure you have them ordered.

I would recommend that every library in America have, at the very least, each of the current slate of nominated novels for their collections. You should do this every year. It is the easiest way to make sure you have a vibrant and responsive collection in SF and FSY. 

And finally, award nomination time is also a great time to get up some displays featuring your Science Fiction and Fantasy. One of my favorite display ideas to put both together is to title is something fun like "Aliens vs Dragons" or "Robots vs Fairies." Something that makes it clear that they are different genres but also together.

Make sure you represent the breadth of each genre as well-- both in the subgenres covered and the identities of the authors who are witting them. And encourage all departments to put up a similar display. So in Youth, Teen, and Media. Use the same title throughout the library. Every department has titles to fill a display with SF and FSY. Show your patrons that you are one library, working together to highlight similar materials across your entire collection. Also when something is repeated, people pay more attention.

Now take your service up a notch and make the whole library experience interactive as well but getting your patrons involved in fun. Put up a voting box at each display, on every service desk, and encourage voting via comments in all of your online spaces (post pics of the displays with links to titles on Libby or to a list created in your catalog). Ask people to vote for SF or FSY. Even use the title of your display on a small paper ballot. You can use language like:

Join us at Smithville Public Library as we celebrate our Science Fiction and Fantasy offerings across all departments. Vote for the genre you prefer. Let your voice be heard:

    □ Aliens 

    □ Dragons

Have fun with it.  

And always remember-- awards lists are a great tool for you to use to not only help your readers, but also to create fun interactive displays and increase awareness on titles that are great but often get lost in the stacks and/or amidst the noise of whatever is shiny and new.

The Millions Most Anticipated Lists As a Backlist Resource

Last week, The Million released one of the popular Most Anticipated Lists; this one-- The Great Spring 2025 Book Preview. 

This list obviously helps you to prepare for the coming months. Those of you who do collection development will want to use this list to double check that you already have these books on order and get your orders in for those you missed (although, most of you work way more than 3 months in advance, so you are probably only going to find a few titles here that you think would be good for your library that you might have missed.)

Those who work at the services desk need this information to get ready with their "while you wait" readalike suggestions for many of of the high demand titles and to get ready to promote some promising new voices.

But this post is not only about reminding you to be aware of upcoming books, it is also here to remind you that these "anticipated" lists make an even better recourse after the fact. Let me explain.

Use this link to see all of The Millions' "most anticipated" coverage. And there are a lot because The Millions is always doing lists of upcoming titles to be excited about. Vetted by their editors and contributors, these lists feature fiction, nonfiction, poetry, graphic novels, books in translation, literally everything of note that adult services library worker who are helping leisure readers should be aware of. These lists are diverse and inclusive as well. But, most importantly, they are also annotated! This means for every title you have a talking point about it to share with a patron. You don't need to know anything other than how to access these lists; then you read the annotation written by an expert, and viola, you have a booktalk for that title, as well as a way to start a conversation about upcoming books.

[Remember you can and should use the words of others to book talk a book.]

Not only are the titles all annotated, you can pull up every "most anticipated" list in reverse chronological order with this link.

Why use the backlist? I mean if you read this blog you should know, but it always bears repeating, especially when lists like this come out-- bright, shiny, new-- and distract us from our day-to-day work on the ground with readers.

The anticipated lists are there to catch readers' attention. To remind them that there are good reads out there, just over the horizon. To get them excited about their next good read. A sizable number of those who encounter these lists will go into their local library or bookstore to look for these titles, and of course, they are not there yet.

The people who make these lists know that. They know that they are creating a situation where people's interest will be piqued but they will need to place a hold or a pre-order. It's in the title-- "anticipated." 

The Millions is doing the marketing for us. A flashing billboard reading-- HERE COME SOME GREAT READS! Yeah we don't have the books yet, but we have THE BOOKS. We have thousands of them. And many of them were anticipated once upon a time. 

And guess what? If  your reader hadn't read them yet, they are still anticipated. We cannot lose sight of that. We need to use the free marketing from The Millions to our advantage and take a hold but then steer 

those readers to any of their "most anticipated" lists, especially those from 2-5 years ago, while they wait. 

Here are the reasons as to why the full database of ALL of The Millions Most Anticipated coverage is one of your best year round resources:

1. The titles were vetted by experts meaning they are worth your attention at any time, not only when they are new or upcoming. Appearing on this lists is equivalent to a review-- for those of you who cannot order a book without a review. But also, think of the thousands of books that come out every season. If a title makes it to this list, there is a very good chance someone at your library wants to read it.
2. There is a good chance if they were on lists like this that you ordered them for your collections so you own them and probably have not weeded them yet. Looking back 2-5 years means they are probably still relevant as well. 
3. The book talk for you to handsell the title-- verbally or on a list [on the Internet, Libby, or in the library building]-- is right there for you on that list. No work beyond knowing where to click to pull up these lists, look for a good title and read the annotation.
4. Any book on any of the most anticipated lists is a great suggestion anytime people are looking for a good read any time of year. Try the 2024 Spring list first. Why, you can easily start the conversation with your patron saying-- well you want a good read and you aren't sure exactly what type of book, let's look at what everyone was MOST excited about a year ago at this time. These are out and I can help you find the one that will work best for you. (It is the same advice I give all about using LibraryReads as a resource in the intro to every month's posts-- go to the same month's list but from the year before). 
5. And finally, the most important point, when you suggest titles to your patrons that they could not have found on their own, that's when you shine. Reminding people of the treasures that are in the stacks is fun and useful. We need to show them that we are here to help with their leisure reading needs so that they continue to value and seek out our services. When we recommend great titles they may have missed, our users understand the breadth of our collections  and the care with which we have built them, which is something we are not great at communicating to the public.

So yes, go look at the bright and shiny list for Spring 2025 from The Millions, but also make sure you are also using the backlist of  "most anticipated" content to help readers all the time.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: The 2025 O'Henry Prize Winners

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

Each year, The O'Henry Prize Winners 

The O'Henry Prize has been given out since 1919. From the landing page for the annual book printed with the nominated stories:

The O. Henry Prize is the oldest major prize for short fiction in America. Awarded annually since 1919 (with a break in 2020), the prize seeks to provide a prominent platform for short story writers from all around the world and at all points in their careers. The winners’ stories are collected and published annually by Anchor Books.

...The guest editor chooses the twenty O. Henry Prize winners from a large pool of stories passed to her by the series editor. Stories published in magazines and online are eligible for inclusion. Stories may be written in English or translated into English.

Those words are from the beginning and end of that page. Please click through for more information about this long standing and prestigious prize. It is a prize that both honors some of our best known fiction writers, but also, identifies up and comers-- and it has done this reliably for over 100 years.

For the last few years, Literary Hub has handled the announcement. Here is this year's official announcement with a commentary about the process and overall feel of this year's anthology from series editor, Jenny Minton Quigley.

The post is useful and informative because it not only gives you the full table of contents, with the authors, the story titles, and where they were published, but also Quigley has a commentary on the Guest Editor (who is always a person of note themselves), their work and the stories said Guest Editor gravitated to.

Take this year for example. The Guest Editor was Edward P. Jones, two time O'Henry Prize winner and author of one of my favorite books ever-- The Known World. Here are some of the comments from Quigley about Jones and the stories her chose from the Literary Hub announcement:

Last summer, as our guest editor was reading through a hefty box of stories to select his 2025 O. Henry Prize winners, The New York Times announced their list of the one hundred best books of the twenty-first century. Can you guess whose work was included among the best works of fiction by American writers in the 2000s? Of course, the answer is our guest editor Edward P. Jones, who appears on the list twice: first with his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Known World (2003), listed at number 4, and again with his story collection All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006) at number 70.

...Marveling at the ways writers make things up is on Edward P. Jones’s mind these days. Throughout this delightful year spent observing him at work selecting the 2025 O. Henry Prize winners, it’s been clear to me that his objective is to find the kinds of truth that only that “fiction-writer’s freedom” to invent, shape, communicate, and testify can yield. The stories he’s chosen are indeed triumphs of imagination that ring truer in our hearts and minds than any thin facsimiles of reality we’ve come to accept as substitutes for the real thing in an age saturated with cheap information.

All of this leads me to the ways this prize can be used to help readers at your library and as a resource for you.

First, that statement from Quigley is a great way for you to get a sense of the issues and trends in fiction. Short stories are where trends first show up as writers explore ideas that are itching at the front of their brains. Novels take years from start to finish, therefore, the best way to get a handle on the ideas and concerns of our fiction writers in as real of time as possible is through short stories. You want to understand where fiction is moving-- look to short stories (in lit fiction AND genre fiction). 

Second, the nominated titles are made into a book each year. You should buy this book every year and keep the last 5 years, but don't overdo it. You do not need more that that (and every 3 years is plenty). You are not a depository library.

Third this list and the book that has the stories, is full of authors are authors you and our patrons know and love. They will be drawn to the anthology already. And this year specifically, as Quigley notes above, Jones is an author that many readers discovered or rediscovered a new in 2024 as he was all over the NYT Best Books of the Century discussion last summer. Many people will be primed to not only look at what he picked, but ask for more from the authors in the book.

While leads to ...Fourth, it is also full of authors they don't know about yet, but may want to read more from. Yes, they may ask you for more form the voices that are new to them, but you should also be paying attention to the authors that appear on the O'Henry Prize list each year and look for more from them before you are asked by your readers. Do they have any books of their own, what other anthologies have they appeared in, etc. Use the announcement for collection development purposes.

Fifth, this is great chance to have a short story display. Highlight single author collections and anthologies of ALL GENRES. Maybe even include essay collections as well. You can market this displays with a sign that says: "Great Short Reads" or "Short on Time?" I like that second title better because it is a question and draws readers in.  And then just have the books. In person and make a list for your e-book and audio readers as well. 

And last but never least here on RA for All-- the backlist! You can look to the past few years of O'Henry prize winners and the announcement themselves to do numbers 1-5 as well. Here are the Literary Hub announcements from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

Steal This Idea: NPR Book of the Day Podcast As an Easy and Timely Book Display Prompt via Passively Recommending Books

Today to round out the week I am posting a great idea from my colleague Lila Denning (with her permission), from over on her blog-- Passively Recommending Books.

This is an evergreen idea that you can use for a display that is swapped out every day  or weekly by showcasing the previous weeks titles. But the best part is, it will be timely AND you are using resources to give you your display ideas and content. 

Side note-- to be announced soon, but Denning will be appearing on a panel with me and Robin Bradford and others at ALA Annual. It is sponsored by Booklist and moderated by Susan Maguire. Once it is officially added to the schedule, I will post the details on the blog.

In the meantime, see below for more details and ideas from Denning on this specific topic.

Unshelving Your Collection Idea- NPR Book of the Day

One quick and easy way to get some readers advisory information about recently published books is to listen to NPR's podcast Book of the Day. From their website: 

In need of a good read? Or just want to keep up with the books everyone's talking about? NPR's Book of the Day gives you today's very best writing in a snackable, skimmable, pocket-sized podcast. Whether you're looking to engage with the big questions of our times – or temporarily escape from them – we've got an author who will speak to you, all genres, mood and writing styles included. Catch today's great books in 15 minutes or less.

 While this is certainly something that library staff should be encouraged to listen to when not at a public service desk, it's also an opportunity for a quick and easy book display that will be small enough that it can be fit in almost anywhere in a library. 

If you don't own that book, you can skip a day. Remember to check your eBook and eAudiobook collections as well. A book display in your library can also reference those collections to remind patrons that you are a source of digital materials as well. It's also a great readers advisory post for social media. 

Here is an example of a sign that could be posted on a public service desk: 

'Adventures in the Louvre' will teach you how to fall in love with the famous museum

Scan this code to check out this book from our eBook collection!

April 15, 2025

From NPR.org: 

Elaine Sciolino has one mantra: "Never go to the Louvre on an empty stomach or with a full bladder." The former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times has written a guide filled with her best advice for enjoying the world's most-visited museum. Her new book, Adventures in the Louvre, is part journalism, part memoir and part art history. In today's episode, Sciolino speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about the contested origins of the museum's name, the staff's love-hate relationship with the Mona Lisa, and why some Louvre visitors might feel underwhelmed.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

Support our local NPR station! [Name of station] [website]

W. W. Norton & Company

Be certain to credit NPR and the publishers when you use their text and images. I would reference your local NPR station in case patrons want to listen as well as NPR.org

Trend Alert: Non-Human Love Interests

Rule 5 of my 10 Rules of RA Service is:

5.   Read ABOUT books widely, so you can suggest widely

• Reading ABOUT books is MORE important than reading a book.
• Becky’s newsletters of choice: LJ, PW, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot
• Make sure you are reading with an equity, diversity, and inclusion lens as well as a diversity of genres

When I tell you to read about books it is so that you are aware of the conversations happening around books out in the larger world.

It is also one of the best ways to identify trends. Trends appear organically if you reading about books in a variety of locations and you see things overlap. In fact, when you start seeing something everywhere and in non book places, it is time to start promoting it to your readers.

It is also VERY important to put out small, rapid response trending displays whenever you can, to show your patrons you know what they are looking for before they even have to ask. I cannot underestimate how important it is for us to have these trending lists and displays up and highly visible both in the library and online. Even if a patron is not interested in the trending topic, when they see the things they are hearing and reading about outside of the library, they feel like we get it. We are showing them that the library has what people are looking for. That we understand what people want. That goes a very long way toward them knowing that the library is there for everyone. 

Again, even if someone comes in and does NOT want what you have on display, if it is something they have heard about other places, this shows them that we know what people are talking about. Again, do not underestimate how important that is. 

Today's case in point is Non-Human Love Interests in Fiction.

Now, I know this is NOT a new trend. In fact, the 2013 Netflix documentary "Animism: People Who Love Objects" made a wider audience aware of this concept.

In libraries we have had books that fester people falling in love with non-human objects and creatures for a while, but it was always a fringe topic. With the mainstream popularity of Romantasy and titles like The Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su, more people want to know about this trend.

So you know what that means--- let's start promoting all of those titles we already have that fit this now trending theme. Pull those books out of the stacks where they have been patiently waiting for their moment in the spotlight. It is here. No longer languishing, it is time to make them shine. We have these titles in our collections right now. We are ready for the readers who are interested. But without us pulling them out of the stacks to showcase them-- no one will ever know.

Today I have gathered resources for you to make those lists and displays.

• Alien Pleasures via Defector
• Genre Alert: Women Who Are Sexually Attracted to Airplanes...And Other Non-Sentient Objects via Lit Hub
• And as will come as no surprise, Reddit has MANY threads on this topic in various forums. Click here to see them all in a Google search.

This is a display you can have a lot of fun with. Embrace the trend and pull out those books. Show your patrons you know what they are looking for before they even have to ask.